How is it Friday already?? I know why the time is going by
so fast for me. My maternity leave ends next Thursday. Booo. (Actually, “booo”
is a little flippant. It’s more like horrible mental screaming and anguish. Not
because of my job, but because of leaving my baby. Also the serious lack of
writing time I’m going to have from now on.)
So luckily I’m
reading a great book right now to help distract me. ASCENDANT by Diana Peterfreund.
I love unicorns—even killer ones, who knew?—and I’ve been looking forward to
the sequel. I’m also lucky in that the book I’m currently reading has an
awesome first line (*too lazy to paw through my bookshelves*). Technically, it
has two first lines. Because *gasp* it has a prologue. Sort of. More like a
little blurb in the very beginning to set the mood of the story. It’s
appropriately done, though, and I don’t
really mind prologues all that much.
Prologue’s First Line:
In ancient times, royalty
hunted unicorns for sport.
This makes me think of old
medieval tapestries. When I was little, I used to read through this set of Time
Life books my parents had just for all the cool pictures of the mythological
creatures. Especially the unicorns. It had the famous tapestry in it: The Lady
and the Unicorn. And of course, it’s the perfect set up for
a book about unicorn hunters.
 |
| The Lady and the Unicorn Tapestry |
The unicorn drew its last breath.
It goes along beautifully with the prologue, right? Both
sentences are very short, but they get their point across in a powerful way. It
would draw me in right away, even if I wasn’t already all set to read the
sequel.
So what are the first lines from the books you're currently
reading and/or your WIP?
From my current WIP: "Whoever said 'time heals all wounds' obviously never fought a vampire".
Nice post!
Great first line! I love the voice already. You can hear the sarcasm right away. Did it take you a ling time to write it (I.e. multiple edits) ?
Thanks Jess! Nah, the first line kind of just popped into my head. It's the first line of dialogue from a secondary character to the MC. =)
Jamie, thanks for sharing!
In keeping with your theme, Jess, I'll offer the first (long) sentence of one of my all-time, most-inspiring, childhood classics:
Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, "and what is the use of a book," thought Alice, "without pictures or conversations?"
-Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
You know my first line (to lazy right now to go look it up). :0) Love this post though. Didn't realize your baby was so new! Aw. They are fun.
@Kelsey--lol, that IS a long sentence! I love the way it flows, though. You can practically hear the British accent.
@Mandie--You have a great first line, too. Yep, only 3 months old! :)